Saudi Aramco, Chinese researchers to pursue ultra-low emission fuels

By

Renzo Pipoli

Saudi Aramco said on Friday that it has teamed up with Chinese university researchers, as well as with a petrochemical company and a vehicle manufacturer, in a bid to study ultra-low fuel emission technologies. Photo courtesy of Saudi Aramco

Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Saudi Aramco, which has one of the biggest crude oil production operations and reserves in the world, said Friday it has teamed up with Chinese researchers, a company that builds diesel and natural gas engines, and a petrochemicals company to study ways to lower emissions.

Chambroad Petrochemicals, located in the Shandong province, provides fuel and chemicals to 16 provinces in China, including Beijing and Shanghai. It produces "clean fuels" but petrochemicals is its main business.

Saudi Aramco wants to increase the company's participation in fuel and petrochemicals production, in part to rely less on hydrocarbon extraction as it has been doing for decades, Khalid Al-Falih, the country's energy minister, said in early October.

While Saudi Aramco is the world's largest company in the upstream, with production of about 14 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and 260 billion barrels of oil, as well as 300 trillion cubic feet of gas as reserves, the downstream needs development, he said at that time.